De Biesbosch, winter sun

During our last walk in Natural Reserve 'De Biesbosch' we had a lot of morning fog, but for a few moments the winter sun was strong enough to break through the fog and the clouds. At one of these moments we were close to one of the creeks and of course the sunlight and the clouds were reflected in the water. 

As there was not much colour in the whole scene (except many shades of grey and some green in the fields) I decided to make a charcoal drawing, like I did with the other reference pictures that we made during that walk.

This is one of the first times I tried to make a reflection while working with charcoal and having to think about black and white only makes it easier to place the reflections, but using colours (like in a watercolour painting) helps making the locations of the sun, clouds and their reflections in the scene a bit more obvious. 
I will have to work on that - and I am looking forward to it.

The details about size, paper used, availability etc can be found at my website www.jannekesatelier.webs.com 

L'Ourthe

In the Ardennes rivers are very different from the ones we have at home, so it is a nice challenge to paint one. At the point where we were, the river Ourthe is very shallow at some places with little waterfalls and rapids. Nothing you can't wade through if you'd want to.
The stones of the riverbanks were overgrown with brambles and there were more bushes in the background. In the riverbed were either large stones creating little rapids or shallow beds of pebbles that were partly above the water.

I wanted to paint those stones and pebbles, the flowing water and the restful mood of the area.

More information about this watercolour (size, colours used etc.) can be found at www.jannekesatelier.co.nr